The Story of The Bird, The Snake, and The Boy
by half-sleeping
Summary: The Story of the Snake, the Bird, and the Rather Stupid but Extremely Nice Small Boy. Really.


Title:The Story of the Snake, the Bird, and the Rather Stupid but Extremely Nice Small Boy.  
Rating: PG, maybe.  
Pairing: 182769, only not really (I feel like I'm constructing a cryptogram)  
Summary: Ahahaha, read the title.

Once, there was a little boy. This little boy was, as you have been told, a rather stupid small boy. But he was a nice boy, and he worked hard under tutelage of a small baby, so that one day he made a visit through a long isolated road to fetch something, all by himself.

As he was walking, he heard a long smooth hiss, and looked down to see a small snake, the deadliest of snakes in the area, for although there were many more poisonous and much larger snakes, there were none more vicious, who killed and killed with (people said) no procavation. However, the boy was not aware of this, having never paid much attention in school. So he crouched down and said, "Hello, little snake, how are you?"

The snake stared at him with one red eye and one blue eye, surprised by the lack of fear and the presence of imbecility in one who had chosen to make their way through the path he called his home, all alone. Usually they passed this way in pairs, as quickly as they dared. "…hello," he said, and was once again surprised when the boy did not run, screaming, "A talking snake!" but he did not know that the small baby at the boy's home did stranger things, daily. "Little boy, where are you going?" he asked, because tow could play at the little game.

"To run some errands, he said, smiling, then leapt back when a little bird, cute yellow feathers and cute yellow beak and vicious yellow talons, dove straight from the sky and attempted to eviscerate the snake. Again.

The bird and the snake were mortal enemies, for the snake had once attempted to lure the bird into his home, deep beneath the ground. The bird had fought back and escaped, but had been severely weakened for a time with poison. They had never forgiven each other, and yet the snake knew that as long as they bird was in the sky he could not win, and the bird knew that if he faced the snake on the ground he would die.

They stared at each other, full of crackling hatred and anticipation of a red red battle- this time they would d settle it, this time the path would run wet with blood-

'Oh!" said the boy. "Your friend is here. How nice!"

For all of half a second they regarded the boy with incredulous disbelief, a lapse in two other wise composed creatures.

"He is not my friend, "said the bird, and fluffed up tiny feathers that did nothing to hide the terrible cruel sharpness of his beak. "For I have no friends, and fly in the sky alone."

"He is not my friend, "said the snake with his cold, cold eyes. "I too keep no company, and sleep in the ground alone."

"How sad," said the boy. "To have no friends." He brightened. "I could be your friend!"

Both the creatures furrowed their brows, and said, "Why?"

"Just for having," said the boy, and smiled, sweet and simple. Then he started, and said, "But first I must run my errand, in the village over the hill."

The snake and the bird both knew that the 'village' over the hill was in fact a den of criminal activity, and therefore that for the stupid and nice boy to go there alone was almost certain long death, as he would attacked three steps in, and most likely sold to a brothel by nightfall.

The snake felt immensely sorry for the stupidness of the boy, and said, 'If we are to be friends, then I shall go with you, come, put me around your wrist." And the boy did.

The bird lowered himself to no such displays of concern and manipulation, but alighted upon the boy's head, and went to sleep.

Thusly attired, the boy went to the village for his errand and emerged unmolested, for everyone but him knew of the endless enmity of the bird and the snake, and also of their weapons- the relentless attacks of the bird, the sharp fangs of the snake. The boy must be a great person, they told each other, and were careful to treat him well.

Later, the boy was tired, and took a nap along the road, under a tree. The bird and the snake both wondered, aloud, if the boy had some kind of death wish. Then they spoke to each other.

"Go away from him," said the bird, "You care nothing about anyone or anything besides yourself, and you will bite him with your fangs, as you do everyone."

"You leave first," said the snake. "Do you have more concern in your heart than I? And you will leave him for your sky, as you always do."

They looked at each other, and then looked away, for this was picking at the very bones of their hatred.

"I will bite him if I want to," said the snake, and he wrapped him self tighter around the boy's wrist, for he liked it there. It was not the sky, and yet it was solid and warm as the ground. "But I will not if I do not, and no one else shall till I do."

"I will fly where I will," said the bird, and he nestled into the head of the boy. It was not the ground, and yet it was high and in the sky. "And land where I will, when I get tired of flying."

And so they stayed with the boy, for the snake felt himself feel less like spreading poison, and the bird less like flying too far too fast.

The boy, of course, was simply happy that he had two such friends, and they, theirs.

-end-

Even Mukuro agreed that Chrome was never ever ever _ever_ allowed to tell campfire stories again.


End file.
